


Doin' it for the Vine

by balloonstand



Series: Why isn't there more shadow travel fic? [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, Shadow Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 12:07:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4745810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balloonstand/pseuds/balloonstand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico and Percy get stuck in the shadow zone</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doin' it for the Vine

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this is a stand-alone that has no continuity with the other stories published in this series. It’s just more fic that centers around shadow travel. This isn’t AU or canon exactly; it’s more like canon adjacent. I just don’t remember when people meet or when information is revealed so this is the best I can do.

As a general rule Percy tries to distance himself from things that will cause him certain death, but the thing is that he just really loves his friends. And they are giving him the big friendship eyes like the completely irresistible idiots that they are, making Percy feel like such a pushover. 

“Please?” Grover begs.

“ _Fine_ ,” Percy sighs. He holds out his hand and Grover eagerly presses the bottle into it. “But this is the last one, or I will die. Really, really die. And you’ll have to live with the guilt of having killed me.”

“Just drink it, Percy,” Hazel says obligingly, like she thinks he is only delaying for the attention, not from the fear of death. Next to her, Nico glares impatiently at Percy, his eyes flicking from the bottle back to Percy. _Don’t let me die, okay Nico,_ Percy thinks.

“Just so you know, this is what peer pressure looks like. You’re peer pressuring me right now,” Percy says, pointing accusingly at each of his friends in turn. None of them seem too bothered by this and just look at him expectantly. Grover is almost bouncing with anticipation now. Percy shakes his head and tries to remember when Grover acquired a taste for blood. Maybe war really did change them.

Percy unscrews the cap from the bottle and takes a deep breath to brace himself. Then he gulps the whole bottle down in fifteen seconds flat to the great delight of everyone watching. As he’s guzzling down on it, he takes a moment to appreciate how quickly he’s chugging the rancid drink. He’s going to _kill_ at college parties. You know, if he survives to college. And his chances don’t look good, not if he can keep being goaded into drinking diluted dracaena venom by the people who are supposed to be the ones trying to keep him alive. 

“Yugh, I’m dying,” Percy gasps once he’s drained the bottle. Annabeth, Grover and Hazel applaud enthusiastically and he holds up the empty bottle to them in a salute. “Oh boy, here it comes,” he says, just as his body starts to levitate several inches off the ground. Percy was never one of those kids who wanted to be able to fly Peter Pan-style, for obvious reasons. He had never even wondered what it might be like to be able to fly. If he had given it some thought, though, he would have imagined it would feel effortless and magical. But the reality was that it felt like absolute crap. The drink pulled him up into the air by his stomach. His muscles strained to hold his body upright. His internal organs very much disagreed with being airborne. All in all, not an experience he would recommend to a friend.

“Do a flip,” Jason calls out. Next to him, Piper puts on her disapproving face, but she wants to see him do a flip too, Percy can tell. 

He flips Jason off. “Like that?”

“Very funny, Jackson. You’re a riot.”

Percy can already feel himself sinking back to the ground, and thanks whichever god made that happen for him. He manages a somewhat graceful landing and accepts another round of applause. He feels like a performing monkey, which would irritate him except that he’s intentionally being a performing monkey tonight. The past few months- few years- their entire _lives_ have been rough. Chiron had suggested that they try to cut loose, have some run of the mill teenage experiences. None of them know how to be normal teenagers, so it is naturally a doomed enterprise. But here they are, at a New York National Park camp ground, laughing at Percy’s buffoonery. 

Percy takes his seat and sees that Annabeth is futzing with her phone. She has been doing that a lot lately, probably mostly texting people that Percy doesn’t want to know about and has no right to ask about. Percy is still floundering around their new boundaries, but this time it seems like it has something to do with him. She is looking up at him every couple of seconds and grinning. 

“What?” he asks. 

“Nothing,” Annabeth says. 

 “She filmed your stunt for a Vine,” Reyna says, her amusement evident. “You looked like an idiot,” is offered as her explanation. 

Yeah, that was the point, but Percy still frowns at them both. “Don’t do that.” 

“Too late.”

“I want to see,” Jason says, and the whole circle shifts from around the campfire to crowd behind Annabeth to see her Vine. Percy thinks about stubbornly sitting this one out, but he is curious too. He puts his chin over Frank’s shoulder to watch. 

It is a spectacularly boring Vine. The Percy on the phone’s screen stands there for a second and then starts to do jumping jacks.

“Is that what I looked like?” Percy asks.

“No,” Annabeth says. “I have no idea…” She trails off, the wheels turning. “It must be Vine,” she says. “It must act like the Mist.”

“So this is what it would look like to mortals?” Piper asks, clearly charmed by the quaint reality that the Mist-blind mortals inhabit.

“I guess so.”

They all laugh and Percy can see it coming from a mile away. And if it is inevitable, he may as well be the one to suggest it. That is what being a leader is all about, isn’t it?

“We should try other stuff and see what it looks like,” Percy says.

*

When Frank transforms into an animal, it looks like he puts on a very unrealistic looking costume; when Annabeth puts on her Yankees cap, it looks like she ducks down out of view of the camera; when Jason summons his lightning, it looks like he is lighting sparklers; when Leo is on fire, it looks like he is on fire. 

It is fully dark out and they have no plans to stop, except they are running out of ideas. Percy’s stomach hurts from all the laughing and he never wants this to stop. He casts around for something else they can try. His eye lands on Nico.

Hello, Nico. 

Percy is surprised that he even came with them. He has always been in and out of their lives, and more out than in most of the time. But Nico had walked over as they were loading all their camping gear into the van and called shotgun. Percy had been overcome for a moment with the desire to find him a participation award. Maybe a trophy with a plaque that reads _You Participated in a Group Activity_ and topped with a little gold boy reluctantly hanging out with his friends.

It would have been premature because Nico isn’t participating now. He doesn’t look miserable; honestly, he doesn’t even look bored as he leans over Jason to re-watch the Vine of Reyna’s ninja moves – which are apparently too magical for the Vine to record faithfully – and says something in his ear. Jason lifts his fist for a bump without taking his eyes off the phone. Nico looks skeptical, but he does bump it. 

But Nico isn’t exactly jumping at the chance to try a Vine himself.

“What about Nico?” Percy proposes. “He should do one.”

Nico looks betrayed, but Percy doesn’t think that he is imagining the keenness underlying it. 

“Do I have to?” Nico asks, and yes there is that eagerness that he can’t quite hide. Percy grins with all of his teeth on display.

“Yeah, you have to,” Jason says, just as Hazel says, “We’ve all done one.”

_Yeah, Nico,_ Percy doesn’t say, _all the cool kids are doing it_. 

It takes almost no time to convince him. Percy wasn’t wrong, Nico wants to be a part of their reindeer games. The moment sours as everyone skirts around which of his morbid tricks he should do for the Vine.

“I could shadow travel,” he says, nettled.

“Not alone,” someone adds quickly. _Safety first_. Percy doesn’t see who says it as he watches Nico’s expression.

He watches his expression through the momentary pause, the breath that is just a little too long as no one volunteers to shadow travel with Nico. 

“I’ll go,” Percy says. 

It’s possible that he has made decisions more rashly in his life. Percy has made a lot of decisions. He can’t think of any he regrets as much as this right now, though. For one thing, he doesn’t want to shadow travel. It gives him the bad shivers just thinking about it; maybe some people would get excited at the idea of somehow becoming one with the shadows and general darkness of the world, but Percy does not want to meet those people. He has shadow traveled a couple of times when it was _life-or-death_ necessary, but joy riding through the shadow realm is outside of comfort zone. And for another thing- He looks over at Nico’s pinched, discontent expression. 

He has his pride though, so five minutes later he is holding onto Nico’s wrist and letting Annabeth strap the phone to his head. He is glad that he’ll have at least the one free hand in the shadow realm. It’s a small comfort, but it does make him feel better that he will be able to draw his sword. 

Nico looks up at him. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Just for a few seconds, okay?” Jason says to Nico. “Then come right back.”

“Okay, boss,” Nico mutters. Percy can feel Nico’s heart beat pick up under his fingers as Nico focuses on bringing them into the shadow realm. Percy is suddenly full of questions about shadow travel that he doesn’t get the chance to vocalize before he feels himself absorbed into the darkness. Darkness is not a void, he learned his first time shadow traveling. It is claustrophobic in the way it touches every inch of Percy’s body, except for his palm and the pads of his fingers because those are pressed against Nico’s skin. Percy has to fight for breath in the first few moments. Breathing the darkness into his lungs is strange. It almost has a taste. An unpleasant taste. He smacks his lips a couple of times as he tries to get the taste out of his mouth. 

“Stop that,” Nico hisses at him. 

Percy wants to ask him how he can stand the taste of all this darkness, but he doesn’t want to open his mouth and pollute it further. _How can you talk right now, what are you made of?_ he thinks aggressively at Nico. _Don’t you taste this too?_

“Are you filming?” Nico asks. 

Percy nods, remembers that Nico can’t see him, and then breathes out, “Yes” while opening his mouth as little as possible.

“Okay, let’s-“

 Something happens. Percy can feel it happen; he knows nothing about shadow travel or the shadow realm or really anything about Nico’s powers, but he can tell that whatever it is that happens right in that moment is _bad_. Nico’s heart beat flutters then rockets out of control as this thing happens, and if Percy had any doubts then that would tell him about how bad it just got for them. 

Percy doesn’t have the vocabulary to describe this thing, just like he doesn’t have the vocabulary for the taste of darkness. The thing is something like getting electrocuted and something like being smothered. There is a touch of lava in it too, that shimmering and creeping heat. 

“Oh, what was that?” Percy gasps, forgetting about the taste of darkness and keeping his mouth shut. 

“No idea, no idea,” Nico wheezes somewhere next to him. HIs heartbeat flutters delicately under Percy’s fingers and Percy rubs his thumb soothingly across it. Nico’s arm twitches. 

“Get us out of here,” he orders.

“What do you think I’m doing?” Nico snaps.

The darkness scrambles. It’s like old-timey television static, except there is no gray or white, only different kinds of darkness. 

“What’s happening?” Percy asks. He is mentally thanking Annabeth for strapping the phone to his head so he has a free hand to draw Riptide from his pocket. “Talk to me, Nico.” He’s in the dark here. Literally. 

“I don’t know,” Nico says. “Something-“

The thing pulses through them again and it’s followed by more of the darkness static. Then, like a television turning on in a dark room, a rectangle appears in the darkness. In the rectangle or beyond it there is a hospital room.

“Nico,” Percy says because there is nothing else he can do. 

“I can’t get us out of here,” Nico says. “I can’t- something is stopping me. This is as close as I can get us.” He gestures with the arm that Percy is holding toward the window into the hospital room. 

“What happened?” Percy asks again.

“I think it’s the phone,” Nico says after a long pause. Percy doesn’t know what he is talking about for another long moment. Full of pauses, that’s the two of them together. Silences and confusion. He can’t even see Nico’s face. 

“The phone? Oh, the phone,” Percy says. “I can try turning it off?” That does nothing. Percy tries letting go of the phone and lets it float into the not-void like a sacrifice and that does nothing either. Percy Jackson: 0 Shadow Realm Thing: 2. 

“I’m out of ideas,” Percy says reluctantly. 

“Shh,” Nico shushes him.

“What?”

“I’m listening.”

_To what?_ Percy mouths at him, knowing that Nico can’t see him. He can’t hear anything, but it occurs to him that he might not want to hear what the pure darkness has to say to him. His dreams are haunted enough already, thank you. 

Percy focuses on the window. The hospital room is empty but brightly lit. Percy leans toward it to see if he can stick his head in it or something, but the window shrinks from him as he gets closer. He leans back again and the window creeps forward. He rocks back and forth, watching the window do a little dance around his movements. He leans back, back, back, and rockets himself forward. He yelps as the shadow zone tilts around him and he falls through the window, dragging Nico along with him by the wrist. Falling through the window brings them into the hospital room.

Sort of. 

Though he can see the hospital room all around them, Percy can _feel_ the shadow realm holding them still. They must be between the two somehow, between the real world and the shadow one. 

Too many things are happening for Percy. He doesn’t even know what questions to ask. He thought he was getting used to all the mythos and on good days he even thinks of himself as kind of a pro. He hasn’t felt this off-balance since those early days of discovering Grover’s goat legs and seeing water heal him for the first time. So he has to keep his mouth shut and let Nico run what is clearly his show. 

“What’s happening where are we what is going on?” Percy blurts out in a rush. 

It takes him a moment to realize that he can see Nico again. His heart jumps and he looks away without meaning to. Nico looks– Percy is a polite boy whose mother raised him as best as she could. He is not the kind to go around calling his friends _horrifying_ , but he can’t think of another word for it. Percy is really going to have to work on expanding his vocabulary when they make it back from this. Oh, gods, _if_ they make it back from this.

Nico is a shadow version of himself. He is murkily ill-defined and faded in around the edges where the dark edges of him touch the light. He still has his face, but it is shaded and difficult to see. He looks like he could be holding the whole shadow realm within him and it is leaking out through his skin. Percy’s hand itches where it is wrapped around Nico’s wrist. He might have let go, but he can’t move his fingers. It is like they’re glued to Nico. Percy doesn’t dare look down at himself. He doesn’t want to see himself if he looks like Nico does. 

“Can you reach the bed?” Nico asks, meaning one of the hospital beds. “See if you can touch it.” Percy sticks his arm out – still not looking at it just in case – and tries to make contact with the bed. His hand passes through it, making him shudder.

“No, I can’t touch it.”

Nico makes a considering noise. “Then I have no idea what’s happening,” he says. His tone of unconcern doesn’t match his announcement.

Well, at least they have something in common, Percy thinks. Not knowing what’s going on might be the only thing they have in common right now. It won’t do any good to press and ask questions, but he can’t help wondering aloud whether they will ever make it back to the real world. Nico’s silence is not reassuring. 

“We are still in the shadow zone, though, right?” Percy asks to double-check. 

“Yeah. I opened a window and that’s why we can see this hospital.”

“Why this hospital?”

“It’s just where we are. I can take us somewhere else.”

He tugs Percy after him as he crosses the room. Just like that, like changing the channel, the hospital room is gone and they are standing in a cemetery. Fog rolls around them, making it difficult to see too far ahead of them.

“Cheerful,” Percy says. 

“We could go somewhere else.”

“No, no. This feels appropriate. I can see why you chose it.”

“I didn’t _choose_ it. It’s just where we are.”

“I thought the hospital was where we are.”

Nico sighs. “It’s where we _were_. The shadow realm doesn’t overlay earth’s geography. Things don’t have to be close together geographically to touch in the shadow realm.”

“Great, that really clears it all up.”

“It would if you’d just think about it for a second,” Nico mutters. 

Percy sighs. It won’t do him any good to fight with Nico. Technically it’s not his fault that when his godly powers short circuit it leaves them stranded in a horror show. If Percy’s powers went on the fritz, the worst that could happen would be a small flood or something. Not permanent residence in the shadow zone. But it’s not Nico’s fault that his powers are like this.

“So what now?” Percy asks. Is it too pushy to ask the same question twice in a row, because Percy has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from shouting _what now_ in Nico’s face. 

Nico doesn’t seem to hear his question anyway. Or he ignores it. Percy risks a peek at Nico out of the corner of his eye, but he still can’t really discern any of Nico’s regular facial features like a mouth or nose or eyes. 

So he can’t read Nico’s face. So Nico is ignoring him. So he is stuck in the shadow realm for the rest of his life or maybe for the rest of eternity. The last thought bears repeating: stranded for eternity in a shadow world.

“Talk about a cliché,” Percy says just to hear the sound of his own voice. It echoes around the cemetery. Who knew that there was an echo in the shadow zone. 

The scenery changes in an instant. There is no more cemetery; they are standing in the center of a bustling office space. A woman in a skirt suit is barreling toward them at a slightly alarming speed and Percy tries to pivot out of her way. He can’t do it in time but it doesn’t matter. She passes right through him like a ghost- like he is a ghost. Percy shudders. 

“Is this better or is it still too cliché?” Nico snips next to him. 

The cemetery wasn’t at all what Percy was talking about, but he isn’t going to say so and risk Nico taking them back there. 

“They can’t see us, can they?”

“No one can see us, Percy. We’re just shadows.”

*

It must be a week before Nico gets his idea, but Percy can’t be certain. He doesn’t get hungry or tired which should be good because he can’t sleep or eat, but it just makes him worried that means he can’t die and he will be stuck in the shadow forever. The first time it starts getting dark wherever they are, Percy begs Nico to take them somewhere where the sun is out. Nico says almost nothing, but he does keep Percy in the sunlight as much as he can. The first day of this shadow travel road trip Nico took them to a lake. Percy thought – he hoped beyond hope – that if he could touch the water somehow he could break out of this. But he couldn’t even feel the sensation of power and comfort that being close to water always gives him. It was like there was no water at all. Nico quietly reminded him that they weren’t really at the lake, they were in the shadow zone. Nico didn’t take them anywhere with bodies of water again. 

They don’t really talk. Percy thinks that they should. They are alone together, stranded between reality and darkness. Percy thinks that they should probably talk. Otherwise they will forget language entirely. There is no one else to practice talking with. Sometimes Percy likes the quiet, but mostly it makes him crazy. He fights the urge to open his mouth and scream himself hoarse. He fights the urge to point out any little funny thing he sees to Nico. If Nico can be calm and quiet about this, so can Percy. 

Even when Percy sees the little funny things he doesn’t have to fight the urge to laugh- there is no urge for that in the shadow realm. 

Nico takes them here and there. Percy is burning to ask him why they keep moving and where they are going. As far as he can tell, they go nowhere in particular, nowhere special. Malls, libraries, parks. Lots of public places. Percy almost wishes that Nico wouldn’t take them places like this. It’s rubbing their isolation in their faces. Alone in a crowd. It really is a cliché. 

They are in a crowd when Nico gets his idea. They are at a movie theater. They aren’t in one of the theaters though, they are in the lobby. A kid begs her mom for extra butter on their popcorn. An employee spills Mountain Dew on himself and swears under his breath. Percy thinks that he could melt from boredom. He is no longer worried about being stuck in the shadow zone forever; he is worried about fading away to nothing, until he is just another shadow himself. 

Something changes. It takes him a moment to realize what is different. No, he immediately recognizes that he is more alert than he was a second ago. But why– Nico’s heartbeat. Percy can feel Nico’s heartbeat under his fingers again. It had faded out a carnival days ago. Percy had watched the ferris wheel make another lazy rotation and he realized that he couldn’t feel Nico’s heartbeat anymore. He had shifted his fingers as much as he could, but still felt nothing. He had taken it as an omen, or a death sentence.

Now it’s back. 

“What is it? What happened?” Percy breathes, unable to make his voice come out normally at full volume after so many days of disuse.

“I can see a way out,” Nico whispers back. “I can see it, Percy.”

It looks like this: the shadow realm is old, Percy. It’s old and tired and occasionally it tears apart a little at the seams. Just little slits in the fabric. But big enough for two people to fit through. 

“Big enough for us?” Oh, it feels so good to talk again. The entire population of Camp Halfblood would be rolling their eyes at him if they heard him think that.

“Big enough for us.”

It’s big enough for both of them. And there is always a tear somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding it. Which will be difficult. 

“What can I do to help?”

“Do you know how to navigate the shadow realm?”

Nico will take them to all of the weak spots that the knows of and he will feel his way out of the shadow realm from there.

“So what do I need to do?”

“Be ready. I don’t know for what- just stay on your toes.”

Percy squeezes Nico’s wrists. It feels so good to have a plan. A little bit of hope. He should thank Nico. 

*

There are two false starts, but they reach the first weak spot. 

“Stop the car!”

Percy hadn’t realized they were in a car. They are in the back seat. For a moment Percy tricks himself into thinking he can feel the leather of the seat he is sitting on.

“Stop the car,” the woman in the passenger seat says again. “I think I heard something.”

Percy focuses on her. She is in a wedding dress. The man driving is in a tux. He twists to look at the back windshield – catching a glimpse of Nico out of the corner of his eye as he does so; he is still shadowy but it doesn’t seem as bad as before – and sees the _just married_ written on it.

“Honey, relax. You’re just frazzled from all the wedding chaos. Try to sleep,” the groom says soothingly. 

“Is the car the weak spot?” Percy asks Nico. 

The groom slams on the brakes and the car jerks to a halt. The newlyweds get thrown forward against their seatbelts, but Percy and Nico don’t move. 

“Okay, I definitely heard something that time,” the groom says.

“ _They_ are the weak spot,” Nico says. Both of the newlyweds shudder as he speaks. 

“We’re freaking them out,” Percy says. 

Nico laughs. “They can’t even see us.”

“But it seems like they can hear us.”

The groom is fiddling with the radio. “Is it…turning itself on?” he mutters to himself. 

“Let’s just get to the hotel,” the bride says nervously. 

Nico looks forward against the groom’s seat. “Welcome to KXWD, your favorite classic rock station,” he whispers. 

“Are you enjoying this?” Percy asks in disbelief. 

“Coming up, traffic on the ones. But first-“

That’s as far as he gets before they bolt from the car. Nico settles back in his seat, radiating self-satisfaction. 

“That was mean,” Percy says. He doesn’t know why he’s trying to spoil the one good moment of this whole thing. But that was mean. 

“That,” Nico says, his voice tight, “was _fun_.” 

Before Percy can think of what to say, Nico has tugged them along the road after the newlyweds. He skips them along down the road. Percy sees a sign a quarter of a mile away and in a moment they’re next to it. Nico is bunching up the shadow zone and they are cheating along its folds. It’s– awesome, Percy has to admit it. It doesn’t make him feel better, but it’s another thing to think about.

Catching up to the newlyweds is more a matter of finding them than moving quickly. They track them down at a diner. Nico pulls up short. 

“The weak spot is one of their shadows,” he tells Percy. He speaks in a low voice and the newlyweds aren’t affected by it. Percy wonders if Nico is doing it on purpose. “We have to get them to stand up so we can get in their shadows.”

“Both of them?”

“Just one, but I don’t know which. Let’s try the bride’s first.”

Her shadow must be the weak spot because as soon as Nico touches it they’re somewhere else.

 

Percy knows that they’re near water even before he sees the lake. He gets that feeling in his gut and he almost cries in relief. He had worried that he wouldn’t feel that tug again ever. It feels so right he can’t believe it was ever gone. 

“Nico,” he says so Nico will know. Percy reaches his free arm out to the lake and the beautiful sensation deepens. He curls his fingers and the water actually stirs. Percy shouts out a laugh, erupting with joy. The water reacts to him, sending up a spray of droplets like small fireworks. 

“Percy,” Nico warns.

Percy ignores him. He lets the water run wild. He makes a fountain, then four fountains. He makes more until there is almost more water in the sky than in the lake. Nico says his name a few more times but Percy can hardly hear him over the rush in his ears, the deafening delight. He lets the lake escape the earth like he can’t escape the shadow zone. That feels predictable, so he lets it fall back into its basin. 

A girl runs right through him and Percy’s connection to the lake snaps like a brittle bone. He finds himself out of breath like he has just run a long distance. 

The girl who ran through him – actually, everyone who was at the lake – was fleeing. They are all in a panic about the water show Percy just put on. A kid is crying loudly somewhere behind him and Percy- Percy feels like the lowest of the low. They had been having a relaxing day at the lake until the water had decided to vacate to the sky. Percy would bury his face in his hands if both of his hands were available to him. 

“That was mean,” Nico says next to him. Next to him. Where else would he be?

_That was fun_. That’s Percy’s first instinct, but he holds it in. He remembers his comment to Nico in the newlyweds’ car and Nico’s response. The thing is, it was fun. Percy loved it. Even though it scared people, he loved it. 

It’s another thing to think about.

He looks at Nico full in the face for the first time since this whole mess started. Not an accidental look or a glance out of the corner of his eye. He pivots on purpose so he can look at Nico. 

Nico is still all shadows. He wisps away into nothing at his edges. Percy thinks he can make out two eyes and a nose. He can’t find Nico’s mouth, even when Nico speaks.

“We should find the weak spot, Percy.”

Percy lets Nico jump them around the lake. He sees the abandoned folding chairs and beach umbrellas and bags of towels and pool floaties. He wonders if people are going to come back for their stuff. He hears sirens in the distance. Someone called the cops. There were a lot of times that Percy has done something that produced these same results, but it has been a long time since he thought of his powers like they’re scary or destructive. He knows that he is powerful, but this- is different. This is, he thinks guiltily, how he thinks of Nico’s powers but not his own.

He looks at Nico’s face again, all those shadows. He looks down at himself for the first time just for good measure. He is not shadowy. 

The weak spot is in the shadow of one of the stranded beach umbrellas.

 

When they land at their next stop, Nico laughs. 

Percy looks around to get his bearings. They’re in a basketball arena. The seats aren’t packed, but the court is empty and Percy guesses that there is still some time before the game starts. Nico is still laughing and Percy smiles at the sound. 

“What?” he asks. “What’s so funny?”

Nico shakes his head. “Nothing,” he giggles.

“Come on,” Percy says. He pokes Nico in the side, grinning.

“I love basketball,” Nico says. “We have to stay and watch the game.”

Percy groans. 

They’re going to watch the game. There is never any question. Even if Percy could sniff out weak spots on his own, there is no way he would take Nico away from this. There is time before the game starts so Percy makes Nico walk over to concessions and they make a show of looking over the menu. 

“Do you want a hot dog?”

“I’m thinking about getting popcorn.”

“Oh good idea, and I want one of those souvenir cups.”

“Me too.”

Nico takes them behind the counter and they pretend to steal the candy. Percy sees the moment that Nico realizes that he can take them anywhere in the stadium. He could take them to the vault with all the money or the locker room or the luxury boxes. Percy is struck by how innocent Nico is in that moment. His cheeks are pink knowing that he could get away with doing something that he knows he isn’t supposed to do. Percy knows Nico won’t actually do any of it. 

“Come on, Nico, the game is probably starting soon.”

They sit in the court side seats because there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t. Percy doesn’t believe that Nico has ever seen a basketball game before in his life. He asks questions about the rules every fifteen seconds, but never waits for an answer before moving on to something else. Percy lets himself enjoy this. He could have been enjoying this much earlier, he realizes with a thud. Nico has probably been having fun the whole time- certainly since he has discovered their way out, but probably the whole time. He had fun with the newlyweds and he could have been having fun at the lake. Now that Percy thinks about it, Nico has been in control of where they go this whole time. He has probably been flipping through destinations like television channels. And Percy was pouting and sulking the whole time, unnerved by some shadows. 

Not any more, he decides. 

He pulls Nico onto center court during halftime. There is no way he could have known that center court is the weak spot. Not that it matters. He doesn’t know what he was going to do at center court with Nico anyway.

*

Percy asks questions. He asks about everything he has ever wondered about shadow travel or the shadow zone. He is probably driving Nico crazy but he doesn’t stop. A lot of the answers are _I don’t know_ or _that’s just how it works_. Sometimes Nico gives him real answers that he can’t even wrap his brain around. Those are his favorite. 

They jump from weak spot to weak spot. There is the gas station, the shoe factory, the quiet main street of a midwest town. There are many cars, mostly parked and empty. Percy asks why the shadow zone has an obsession with cars. Nico says that cars make easy weak spots but he can’t explain why. There is a bowling alley one time and it almost drives Percy crazy that they can’t bowl. Nico says he is an amazing bowler and Percy thinks he is a big liar but there’s no way to find out while they’re in the shadow realm. He has to remember to take Nico bowling when they get back to the real world. 

His list of things to do with Nico in the real world grows with every one of their stops. Percy doesn’t have to write them down to remember them, but he thinks that seeing them all written out would be very nice. He thinks that he would run his finger down the bullet points of his list as he read them. To keep his place and make sure that he didn’t miss any. 

But Percy thinks that when they get back to the real world, Nico will lose his shadowy appearance and Percy is becoming more and more fixated on this shadowy manifestation of Nico. Now that he’s gotten a good look, he can’t look away. He wonders if Nico feels as wispy as he looks. That’s always the time that Percy wonders if he has been letting Nico down somehow- not doing enough. Percy feels like there is something else he should be doing, but he doesn’t know what. He racks his brain. There isn’t much that Percy can do in the shadow realm to help Nico. Nico has had a handle on this since the beginning. Still, the feeling lingers to unsettle Percy. 

*

Nico says they’re reaching the end of the tunnel. He doesn’t say it like that but Percy has been thinking about this trip like a tunnel. As in _light at the end of_. The light is the real world. He thinks that’s what it is. 

“We’re getting really close to the big tear,” Nico says as they appear outside of a restaurant.

“Sweet Baby Jane’s,” Percy reads off the restaurant’s sign. He grins at Nico. “Hungry for dinner?”

“Starving,” Nico intones. 

They use the open front door instead of scooting their way up through mysterious shadow zone forces. This bit of normality thrills Percy. He amuses himself. 

They pretend to grab menus. There are plenty of open tables and they help themselves to one. Percy’s hand is still mega super glued to Nico’s wrist. It’s like they’re holding hands across the table. Percy thinks about making this part of their game and playing it up like they’re on a date. But he doesn’t. Somehow it would fall flat, he knows that. And it wouldn’t be funny. He knows that too. Another thing to think about. He loves that Nico gives him so much to think about. Nico fills the void of the shadow zone with things for Percy. He loves that. 

They have their game down pat by now. The game is Real World and the rules are simple: pretend you exist in physical reality. They call for the waiter a dozen times and complain loudly when they don’t get any service. Nico offers to take them back to the kitchen and talk to the chef. Percy sighs and tells him not to make a scene. 

Nico bites his lip and looks around the restaurant. He has been fidgety and strange the whole time they’ve been here. Percy’s smile fades into a concerned frown. 

“What’s wrong?”

Nico shakes his head. It’s a blur of shadow.

“Nico, what is it?”

“I can’t find the weak spot,” Nico whispers. 

“The weak- but it’s in this restaurant. That’s why we’re here, right?” Percy asks in confusion. 

“Yes, it’s in the _restaurant_ ,” Nico says. “But I don’t know _where_ in the restaurant. I can’t feel _anything_.”

“Nico-“

“No, I can’t feel any weak spot here. I lost it and now we won’t find our way out and you-“ Nico breaks off as he reaches the highest octave in his vocal range. He drops his head down on the linoleum tabletop. Percy is paralyzed for a second. He tentatively pats Nico’s head. He tries to stay focused as he feels the texture of Shadow Nico for the first time. It’s like patting a cold cloud. 

“Nico, it’s fine. Don’t worry,” Percy says a little helplessly. He pats a little more and then leaves his hand resting on Nico’s head. He rubs his fingers in a way he hopes is soothing. Nico keeps twitching under his touch which makes Percy worried that it’s not. Percy keeps saying that it’s going to be fine and other similar things. He puts his mouth on autopilot – its natural state, if he’s being honest – and thinks. He wishes that being emotionally literate was easy for him the way it is for Piper, but it’s not so he has to think this one through and make sure he does right by Nico.

This whole journey must be wearing Nico down. The whole burden of fixing this is on Nico’s shoulders. Percy can understand how that feels. He has to lessen that burden somehow. 

“Nico, forget about the weak spot,” he says. “Seriously, just forget it. Let’s just enjoy our dinner, okay?”

Nico picks his head up off the table. “What?”

Percy smiles encouragingly at him. “Let’s just eat.”

Nico thinks Percy is crazy, it’s all over his face. It makes Percy smile even bigger at him. Even through the shadows Percy can recognize that expression. It’s practically Nico’s resting expression when Percy is around. 

“You- you know we can’t actually eat, right?” Nico says slowly like he’s not sure he wants to know the answer. 

Percy puts on an exaggerated look of surprise. Nico rolls his eyes and hollers for the waiter again. Their game resumes.

They stumble across the weak spot by accident. In Percy’s opinion, that is the best way to find the weak spot. Because accidentally stumbling across the weak spot means dancing across it, literally dancing. 

An old man plugs the jukebox in about an hour after Percy and Nico arrived at Sweet Baby Jane’s. It’s scratchy and slow at first, but Percy half-recognizes the second song as one that his mom sang to him when he was younger. He sings a line of it under his breath and catches the tail end of Nico’s curious look. 

“Good song,” he says. His mom used to dance to it when it would come on the radio. “Come on,” Percy says. He tugs Nico out on the floor. 

Nico splutters and resists but Percy just dances. He knows he can’t be any good but there is no one who can see him except for Nico and Percy loves this song. He keeps dancing until Nico starts to move with him. 

If there is magic in the world, it’s contained right there in the moment when Nico starts moving his hips in time to the music. Percy has been turned into a guinea pig before, but this is what convinces him that magic is real. 

They dance.

Percy wishes he could move his hand off of Nico’s wrist because he wants to hold his hand. He just wants to touch Nico’s fingers, twine them in his own for only a second. He’ll let go after that. He just wants to feel Nico’s palm pressed against his for a moment. 

Percy feels the heat and humidity of the real world air for a minute. There is no heat in the shadow realm so the warmth around him must be a touch of the real world. He dances a little closer to Nico. The song has changed by now maybe three or four times but Percy doesn’t want to stop dancing. He could stay here forever, he thinks. 

So that is when Nico sways into a chair’s shadow and they jump across the earth to somewhere far away from the jukebox and the dance floor. 

*

A few weak spots later Percy sees the moon. 

“Sorry,” Nico says quietly. 

“What?” Percy realizes what Nico means as soon as he asks. It’s nighttime. Percy breathes in a deep lungful of the dark night air. There is no trace of the pine trees all around them in that breath, but it is sweet nonetheless. 

“Don’t apologize,” he tells Nico. “You’ve been- This whole time you’ve been- Look, if anyone should be apologizing, it should be me.” The words fall out of his mouth before he has time to think about them.

“What are you talking about?” Nico asks, amusement coloring the edges of his words like he thinks that this is a joke and is ready for the punchline. 

“I’m serious,” Percy says. “I didn’t understand any of this and I know I reacted badly. I should have tried to be more helpful.”

“What are you talking about?” Nico asks. 

Percy frowns. “I’m talking about this shadow traveling thing. I thought it was- I don’t know, bad? But it’s not, I know it’s not. And I shouldn’t have thought that it was.”

“Okay,” Nico says slowly. “I forgive you.”

“Are you just humoring me?” Percy asks in disbelief. “Are you- Nico, I just grew as a person!”

“That’s great,” Nico says. He still doesn’t sound very affected by Percy’s personal revelation.

“You didn’t notice?” Percy asks. 

Nico shrugs.

Percy huffs. 

They don’t speak for a while. Percy hopes it’s because Nico is realizing that Percy has undergone an admirable evolution and is overwhelmed by how wonderful it is. Percy looks up at the stars. 

“We’re really close,” Nico says eventually.

“Close?”

“Close to finding our way out of here. Really, really close.”

Percy feels the meaning hit him. This is almost over, and once it’s over- Percy doesn’t know what then. His heart thuds in his chest.

*

As soon as they hit that last weak spot – and Nico was right, it was really soon – the static comes back. It’s so much worse than it was before. It hurts. It hurts so much. And it just keeps hurting. It burns and smothers and it doesn’t stop. Percy loses all sensation that isn’t the static. He can’t even feel Nico’s wrist. 

Percy worries – he believes – that this is going to kill him. How else could all of this pain end? He doesn’t want to die right now. If he dies then the whole list of things that he has to do with Nico in the real world will be lost. He doesn’t want to miss out on beating him at bowling and taking him to dinner for real food where waiters can actually hear them, and to a lake to apologize for his water show, and a hundred other things. He doesn’t want to not spend time with Nico. He doesn’t want to die right now. 

It’s something to think about. Something to hold onto through the static.

There is a bang and Percy is flung through the air. He bursts out of the static. 

“Nico-” 

He isn’t holding onto Nico’s wrist anymore. He clenches his hand again in a panicked reflex like maybe he just didn’t try hard enough to feel Nico’s wrist. 

“Nico? Nico!” he calls. He struggles to a standing position and tries to get his bearings. 

He recognizes his surroundings; he is back at the national park that Chiron had sent them all to to do some camping. No, _they_ are back at the campground. Nico has to be around here somewhere. Percy just has to find him. 

He starts in the campsite and makes progressively bigger circles outward. He says Nico’s name so many times that it doesn’t sound like a real name anymore. It is more of a chant, mumbled under his breath and pushing him onward. 

“Nico. Nico. Nico…”

He steps on something and almost rolls his ankle. He goes to kick whatever it is, but sees that it’s Annabeth’s phone. He had though it was lost forever in the shadow zone. He picks it up and slips it in his pocket and keeps going. 

“Nico. Nico.”

“Percy?”

“Nico!”

Percy drops to his knees and pulls Nico up to a sitting position. “Nico, Nico. Shit, I thought you were- I don’t know. Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Nico says. “Sorry, I didn’t know that we weren’t going to come out together.”

“Stop apologizing.”

Nico starts to say something, but Percy grabs him by the back of the next and pulls him in for a kiss. Lips on lips in a _we-made-it-out-alive_ sort of way. Percy spreads his fingers so that they brush Nico’s hairline. He raises his other hand and entwines that one in Nico’s hair too. He pulls back very slightly, only so that the kiss can be gentle and not so desperate. 

Nico kisses him back in a _we-should-probably-stick-together_ kind of way. He grabs two handfuls of Percy’s shirt. Percy’s heart stutters in his chest and he thinks he might be tearing up. He wraps his arms around Nico to hold him close as he kisses him. He kisses him deeply. 

*

“I forgot to tell you,” Percy says, “I found Annabeth’s phone.”

They’re walking down the empty highway on their way back to Camp. Nico offered to take them back with shadow travel, but Percy told him no way. Walking won’t take long and he wouldn’t care if it would, as long as Nico was walking with him. 

“Too bad we didn’t record anything.”

“But we did, at the beginning anyway.”

Nico stops walking. “We have to watch it.”

It’s horrifying footage, truly horrifying. If Percy thought that maybe the phone Mist would soften the shadow zone then he was wrong. It transforms the shadow zone into a haunted house. The static manifests on a broken TV in the corner. 

“That’s it,” Percy says as soon as the short video is over. “You’re never shadow traveling again.” He deletes the video for good measure.

“Percy,” Nico says, rolling his eyes. 

“I’m serious, Nico. From now on you’re walking everywhere. And you’re going to wear a helmet and knee pads and wrist guards. And full battle armor.”

“Percy.” 

Percy grabs Nico’s hand. “Never again.”

 

 


End file.
